Knaan Shabtay is an indie folk musician whose songs are rooted in places, memories, and personal stories. When he asked me to create visual art for his music, my goal was to build a visual world that felt as personal and handmade as the songs themselves. The project grew into album artwork, printed materials, merchandise, and a custom type treatment based on his own handwriting.

Role: Designer

Timeline: 2020–2021

Client: Knaan Shabtay, indie folk musician

Scope: Visual identity, album artwork, print design, and merchandise

Result: Built a cohesive visual identity across album artwork, merchandise, stickers, and printed materials, with T-shirts selling out at live shows and online.

Album artwork created for three of Knaan's songs, each with its own hand-drawn concept.

I illustrated each cover while listening to the music, letting the songs guide the imagery. For My Place Under the Sun, I pictured a Polaroid camera printing out words instead of a photo, an image turning into text. For The List, I imagined a typewriter where the words it types become the image itself. For the title track, Teaching Paper Birds to Fly, I imagined an origami bird transforming into a real hummingbird, bringing a paper shape to life.

Each cover had its own concept, but the same hand-drawn style connected them as one collection.

One of the most personal parts of the project was creating a custom type treatment from Knaan's handwriting.

I asked him to write his name and lines from his songs by hand, then shaped them into a typographic element I could use across the artwork. This made the visual identity feel even closer to the music, as if his own hand was part of every piece.

Custom type built from Knaan's handwriting

The visual language naturally extended into merchandise, including album stickers, a T-shirt, and a drawstring bag featuring his name and artwork.

I worked directly with Knaan and printing suppliers to adapt the artwork across formats, making sure each piece translated well from digital design to physical products.

The project came to life across released album artwork and printed merchandise sold both online and at live shows, with the T-shirts selling out completely.

For me, the most rewarding part was the trust Knaan gave me to interpret his music visually. The result became a small visual world built around his songs: personal, handmade, and still one of my favorite creative projects.